Security thought user agreement?

[current]

I am about to launch a site which will allow people to share photos. Since it is a free site, I wasn't planning on running into legal trouble in case someone posts a copyrighted photo. Is there any way of securing myself by making the user agree to a user agreement which confers any responsibility to the user?

[CopyrightAid]

You should certainly cover yourself, and have terms that state that your site users are responsible for the material they post, (and they indemnify you against any costs associated with their illegal use).

You MUST also be pro-active about copyright infringement (and other inappropriate usage): Provide easily accessible ways for visitors to report infringing content (and offensive material) and respond quickly to any issues.
If you do not remove infringing content quickly, your ISP is likely to do it for you (i.e. shut your site down).

Unfortunately there are a lot of idiots out there and I can pretty much guarantee that you will get your fair share of illegitimate content posted, (whether it is copyright infringement, ads for 'medicines', porn, etc.) - you can pretty much count on receiving some from time to time.

The following sites/pages relate to sites that do similar things to what you are planning, I would urge you to have a look at how they tackle these issues - it will help you to develop procedures of your own.

- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
- http://www.flickr.com/ (links to http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/copyright.html & http://www.flickr.com/terms.gne are worth a read for example terms/complaint procedures)